San Jose Sharks, St. Louis Blues make adjustments for Game 2

ST. LOUIS -- Better discipline, key saves and timely goals explain why the Sharks were able to eke out a 3-2 double-overtime victory to grab the first game of their playoff series with the St. Louis Blues, after San Jose failed to score a goal in two previous games at the Scottrade Center.

But the Sharks also earned the win because they did a better job of moving the puck out of their own end and slowing down St. Louis when it tried to do the same. And that is where minor alterations -- whether it's player positioning or puck placement or greater patience -- can come into play.

Neither side was volunteering specifics, but on the day after the Sharks had taken a one game to none lead in the best-of-seven series, the coaches on each side were making other slight alterations in their systems that could make the difference when the teams meet again Saturday.

"We know that they'll be better," Sharks coach Todd McLellan said Friday. "We know that they'll change some things, that they'll adjust in areas, and we have to do the same."

In a sense, Blues coach Ken Hitchcock also will be reacting to changes the Sharks already had made. San Jose dropped all four games between the teams during the regular season.

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"It's our turn to make adjustments," he said. "I think if you live on the, 'Man, we did a lot of good things,' I think that's how you lose. I think you have to come to grips with adjustments."

Players and coaches are understandably reluctant to talk about changes they plan to implement -- "I'm not going to put in the paper what we're trying to do to defeat them," Sharks defenseman Douglas Murray said -- but nobody is reinventing their basic approach to the game.

Instead, McLellan refers to the changes as "minute things that you probably wouldn't even recognize with the naked eye. Situations that are happening with repetition in the game -- whether it's board work, play below the goal line or goalie touches. There are some patterns."

Teams make adjustments throughout the regular season, but in the playoffs they may be more important.

"During the regular season, you're moving on to play another team and starting to prepare for them," McLellan said. "Here we know that we have to play the Blues again tomorrow."

The two coaches did cite at least one area where they weren't satisfied with their team's performance and said changes could be coming.

"We got a lot of in-zone time, but they blocked a lot of shots," Hitchcock said. "We're going to have to find a way to do things a bit different. It just seemed like we had the puck in their zone a lot but not a lot of quality opportunities."

McLellan mentioned his team's ability to get the puck out of the defensive zone.

The Blues' strength, the Sharks coach said, "is their forecheck and their ability to get the puck in behind the d-men. We handled it. We didn't handle it perfectly. That's an area I think we can improve on. For us to have success moving forward, I think we're going to have to do that."

Sharks defenseman Dan Boyle plays down the idea that San Jose changed things significantly between the regular season and Thursday night's playoff opener.

"It was just better execution," he said.

That better execution, Murray suggested, might have more to do with the fact the Stanley Cup is up for grabs than anything else.

"I wish you could say you're there all season long, but for some reason, with higher stakes on the line, it's more focused during the playoffs," Murray said. "It's a tough thing to admit, but you see the physicality out there and how everybody plays, it's a higher intensity, and it brings the whole game to a higher level."